Crop Circling

It must have been going to see the Banksy exhibition in Bristol and then seeing some crop circles in the same week that made me realise the similarities between the two. Graffiti art and crop circles are both clandestine operations, usually done at night, in pretty awkward places, neither exactly legal, but both very public, and questioning of what art can be. They either fade over time or are destroyed – that is, neither of them are permanent. The artists are either outlaws, folk heroes, criminals, vandals, con men or aliens. There are crop circles 'hoaxes' and there are Banksy 'fakes', but neither of them are really – they're still what they are.

We drove to Milk Hill, Alton Barnes, Wiltshire, on a misty Saturday morning which turned out glorious. From the top of Milk Hill we spotted four crop circles – including a great one being described as "a navigational tool to another world or dimension". When we returned home and checked the web updates, another crop circle had appeared below Milk Hill – since we'd been there. Other strange things happened like when we got home a parcel from my mother had arrived – with a clipping of the crop circle we'd just been in. I'd also been looking for a crop circle book I seemed to have mislaid about a year ago. As soon as we got home – I found it, and saw it was by Michael Glickman.

Look, I don't think it's aliens, but I don't think it's humans either – can we agree on something in between? James got an old Spirograph at Frome car boot on the Sunday – and we exclaimed, "So that's how they're made!"